Neuropsychological dimensions in patients with eating disorders

Abstract

Some neuropsychological dimensions may be deteriorated in patients with Eating Disorders (ED). Our objective was to analyse these dimensions in patients with ED: attention and vigilance, speed of information processing, executive function and working memory. 63 patients were collected. The percentages of patients by subtypes of ED were: 33% bulimia nervosa (BN) binge eating/purging, 24% anorexia nervosa (AN) binge eating/purging, 13% incomplete AN restricting, 19% AN restricting, 11% binge eating disorder, 5% incomplete AN binge eating/purging, 5% incomplete BN binge eating/purging, 2% BN non- binge eating/purging and 2% binging. The following tests were administrated: Stroop, Letter Number Sequencing (LNS), Symbol Digit Modalities (SDMT) and The Rey complex figure test (RCFT). Average score in LNS was 18.03, SpanLN 4.87; the average interference was 4.4; average SDMT (related to reference population) was low-normal; average time to copy RCFT was 2.81, quantitative centile in memory 45. It seems to be similar distribution of scores between different Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders subtypes of ED. SDMT score, interference and quantitative score of memory in ROCF were worse than reference population.